Besides Conan--my second favorite S&S stories are Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories. I first discovered in the 80's as my older cousin who was big into D&D and Palladium Fantasy had a few of the books. I burned through all of them in about 2 weeks one summer and managed to track down my own set of them a few years back.
I always hear folks discuss Conan, Elric, Fahfard & Grey Mouser, Throngor...but for me KANE winds up being the #2 influencer when I think of S&S literature.
I spent my flights this week re-reading some classic Kane stories to help fed the creative engine. Kane is an interesting character both smart enough to outwit foes and able to physically crush his foes. Kane is immortal...but can be wounded and potentially killed. The stories are dark and gritty despite the seeming conceit of the hero always surviving.
Who is Kane? From wikipedia:
Little is known about Kane's origins. In the story "Misericorde", he declares to one of his foes that his father's name was
Adam and his stepmother's name was
Eve, possibly making him the biological son of Adam's first wife
Lilith. Like traditional depictions of
Cain
he is a powerful, left-handed man with red hair, said to have killed
(strangled) his brother Abel, and has been cursed by a mad god with an
eternal life of wandering. Nevertheless, he is vulnerable to wounds, and
it is said that he can be killed "by the violence that he himself
created", although his wounds heal at a rapid pace. Kane is portrayed as
both an excellent warrior ("I kill things," he tells Elric in "The
Gothic Touch". "It's what I was made to do. I'm rather good at it") and
an accomplished sorcerer, who spends the millennia wandering from one
adventure into the next. Also like the Biblical Cain, Kane is marked as a
killer; those who meet the gaze of his icy blue eyes cannot maintain
contact for long, for they give away Kane's true nature as a butcher of
men.
He is often compared to
Conan the Barbarian,
but Kane is quite different in that he is a devious character with a
more somber and reflective outlook on life than Conan and has none of
the latter's dislike of sorcery. His creator described him as a
character "who could master any situation intellectually, or rip heads
off if push came to shove".
[1] Some commentators have argued that the fantasy protagonist that Kane has most in common with is
Michael Moorcock's
Elric, but Wagner was also inspired by
Melmoth the Wanderer.
[2]
Kane is unconcerned with common morality, since no human relationship
can ever last more than a small fraction of his lifetime (although the
daughter he fathered in "Raven's Eyrie" turns up as an adult in the
modern-day "At First Just Ghostly"); and he frequently ends up on the
wrong side in the conflicts in which he involves himself, often to his
own detriment. A common theme running through all Kane stories is the
hero's weariness with his own immortality and his attempts to give his
existence meaning.
